Health Care

The Co-Op Is the Heidi and Spencer of Health Care

by Tim Foley

categories: Obama And Congress, Public Plan

Published June 14, 2009 @ 09:59PM PT

Sen. Kent Conrad’s nebulous idea of one or many health care co-ops, funded in part by the federal government, has now joined the ranks of Heidi and Spencer from The Hills, Cialis commercials, or The Real Housewives of Wherever:  it serves no particularly impressive purpose, it raises my blood pressure automatically whenever I see or hear a reference to it, and yet it’s oddly popular to the extent that I can’t seem to turn my TV on without seeing it.

As I wrote on Friday, the co-op idea, if they kicked it around for another few months and maybe really sketched out what it meant, is not in and of itself a terrible idea.  But it’s a terrible substitute for the public health insurance option that we’ve been discussing now for years.  Nevertheless, there it was all over the place being billed as a substitute.  Conrad himself appeared on TV with fellow moderates Ben “I’m against the public plan, except now I’m for it, except maybe I’m really for a trigger, except I’d totally vote for cloture on this” Nelson (hypothetically D-NE) and Susan Collins (R-ME).  Those of you who remember how this same trio worked to trim wasteful spending like, oh, I don’t know, pandemic flu preparation funds out of the stimulus package should already have worry lines in your brow.  Sure enough, Collins calls the idea “intriguing” and Nelson says “he’s on to something here.”  However, Nelson then went on to talk about how big corporations that self-insure might provide competition to private insurance.  Um, OK, but most corporations that self-insure use private insurance as administrators for their plan.  Plus, much like non-profit insurance, we’ve already got those.

So let me try again to put this in simple terms:  if your proposed solution for our health care crisis is something we already have, then by definition, it’s already proven that it does not dramatically change the game on controlling costs or expanding access.

A particular treat is an AP article that suggests this co-op idea is even catching on in the White House.  This dubious assertion is based on Vice President Biden and HHS Secretary Sebelius’ comments on the Sunday talk shows.  The article highlights “tea leaf” quotes like, “There is no one-size-fits-all idea” and “Having these ideas on the table is exactly where we need to be right now.”  Not quite a ringing endorsement, but if you surround it with quotes of Conrad talking about the co-op, it looks mighty positive.  Of course, to make this work, the article has to completely leave out Biden saying, “Again, we've made it clear that we think there should be a public plan.”  So an AP article intended to convey a sense of momentum about the co-op instead looks about as credible and manufactured as Joe-mentum.

Oh, and speaking of which, Joe Lieberman is against a public plan, claiming we already have plenty of competition among private insurance, and that he’d rather have a bill than a debate (not a Freudian slip folks – that’s what he meant to say).  The good people of Hartford, insurance capital of the world, can rest easy tonight knowing Joe is looking out for them.

Look, Sen. Conrad is fond of saying, “This really isn't, to me, a matter of right or wrong.  This is a matter of: Where are the votes in the United States Senate?”  But, you know, shouldn’t it at least a little be a matter of right or wrong?  To say that another non-profit entity, however governed, will change the game as much as public coverage is just flat-out wrong.

Tell the Senate Finance Committee the Co-Op is a Cop-Out

Update:

Do yourself a favor and read through Jacob Hacker's blog post "Un-Cooperative: The Trouble with Conrad's Compromise," which not only effectively tackles many of the problems with the health co-op proposal, it also goes through the history of such health co-ops in this country, and why most of them were not successful.

(Photo credit:  Valli_Hillare on Flickr.)